Build a Robot

Make it better.

[joe-england]

Goddess of War: Atrea and Katy by JoeEngland

I’m eager to see if this is going to get flagged by Tumblr’s new policy.

[staff]

A better, more positive Tumblr

Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.

Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).  

Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.

So what is changing?

Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.

Why are we doing this?

It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.

Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.

So what’s next?

Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.

Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.

Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.

Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.

Jeff D’Onofrio CEO

[joe-england]

  This… seems extreme.  I don’t have much in the way of NSFW stuff on my own blog, but I don’t have a problem with artists who do.  And a lot of them are extremely talented, and deserve a valid platform for showing their work!  Tumblr has become an essential tool for many of us trying to make a living, and the fact of the matter is that many artists make their living with explicit art.

  And more than that, many of us simply feel the need to express ourselves through erotic content!  This will be cutting them off at the knees, forcing them into the dark, towards less efficient or reputable platforms.  Many of the artists I follow on DeviantArt rely on Tumblr as a place to showcase their more risque imagery, and now they’ll have to find something else entirely, potentially having to relocate years of work, or else just leave it behind!

  And like I said, I don’t have much in the way of NSFW stuff myself, but… what if I want to experiment?  The thought crosses my mind now and then.  What if I want to demonstrate to the people who follow my blog that I’m widening my range?  It’s supposed to be the central hub of my online endeavors!  I guess all I can do now is post a link to some other corner of the Internet.

  No, this is wrong.  It’s a sweeping, blunt-force solution to a problem which requires thoughtful solutions, and it will devastate countless artists.  I protest.

[theveryworstthing]

7 Unseen Failures

Happy Friday the 13th. Here are some unlucky spooks from patreon.

The things in the shadows are not immune from tripping on the curb of the universe.

The ancient tome fell into the wrong hands almost immediately after the death of its keeper. The young men tasked with boxing up the belongings in the darkened apartment pocketed many small things that the family didn’t specifically put on the list, but the ivory box was the greatest find. It whispered to them in their dreams and they woke every morning electrified, shivering with the half remembered visions of the dark god whose door they had found. They only had to conduct the ceremony to the tome’s precise instructions to summon their master. And then. Power.

Power eternal.

As soon as they figured out what that plant was.

They’d been stumped by it for months. Tony said that maybe since the tome was hand written in like, fuck-knows B.C. the plant was straight up extinct. Everybody yelled at him for it, but he knew in his heart he was right. And if it wasn’t extinct, they certainly didn’t have the right name for it. There’s only so much heavy lifting an old biology book and a bargain bin Latin dictionary could do. God, Latin was hard. Some of it didn’t even seem to be Latin? There were some ‘ye oldes’ in there? And they were positive most of it had to be ancient slang because Google was turning up some weird results (when it actually turned up results).

Also, they definitely weren’t grinding up the right kind of bones to make the chalk. These bones sucked. These bones were screwing up the whole operation.

They tried to ask the god about maybe accepting substitutions for what they sussed out was dodo blood and proper conversions for modern measurements but it just gave them more spiritual visions that were grand as ever but somehow felt a little embarrassed. Tony said that it might not even understand English and got yelled at again.

They never summon shit.

Keep reading

[gogearfree]

This is just some great stuff.

[babiesareyum-blog]

“A member of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition plays the bagpipe for an indifferent penguin, 1904.”

[such-heights]

#the greatest caption in the history of the world

[potoo-reblogs]

[gogearfree]

I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't a video at first.

Then my head just filled in the sound so it's okay now.

[lackadaisycats]

I don't know if this a bit of an inappropriate question, but how do you deal with procrastination in terms of art. I'm an artist myself but I often draw things months apart and I wanna make myself draw more. Any advice?

It’s not inappropriate. It’s a good question.  Different things work for different people, and I’m not sure my thoughts about it will be helpful, but here they are. (Pardon the excessive verbiage. I didn’t edit…because I should be working >_>)-Break the work into pieces.  Staring down a sizable comic chapter or complex illustration like you have to charge at it wholesale can be daunting. Even if you’re excited about it initially, reality eventually sets in and whatever reservations and anxieties you have stored at the back of your mind quickly become tactics for negotiating yourself out of doing the work. Sometimes even a smaller project can have that effect if you’re thinking of it in terms of how many total hours you’re bound to spend poking at it.  So, parcel it into whatever bits make it manageable, whether it’s looking at the writing, layout, penciling, color flats and final polish as separate tasks or deconstructing it into time segments like ‘however much painting I can get done during the 2 hour duration of this podcast I’m listening to’, then break and strategize your next move.

-Take breaks and reward yourself.  Sometimes I’m really in the zone and I’ll happily work a 10-14 hour shift on something without distraction. More commonly, though distractions do arise, the cat keeps trying to sit on me, my neck hurts, I’m not firing on all cylinders on a given day or I’m not feeling too enthused about the work.  That’s when it helps to use breaks like mini-rewards for each completed task. Stop and watch a half hour of Netflix, play a game, take a walk, stretch, have a snack.  Reward progress. 

-Do stuff you love and are interested in.  Mix as much of the “want to” into the “have to” and “ought to” work as you can. Granted, if you’re doing art for a living, it’s not always an option to focus on your personal interests, but if you’re trying to do your own creative projects, working on a school assignment in which you have some license to choose your subject matter, or if you’re able to be a bit selective with your freelance gigs, pick things that genuinely interest you, or add some of your pet topics to the mix - whatever will heighten your emotional/intellectual investment. I find I’m far more eager to do the work when there’s something about it that I can really glom onto, be it a favorite character, an animal I like to draw, a certain mood I want to translate, a historical setting or costume, a color palette or motif I want to toy around with, etc.

-Step away if it’s not coming together.  Struggling with a frustrating piece of art can be a lot like having a heated argument with someone.  Eventually it devolves into irrational appeals, antagonism and hurt feelings and any chance of productive discourse leaves the scene. Instead of sticking around and making it worse, turning the project into miserable drudgery, set it aside and come back to it later with your composure and sense of perspective intact. That’s not to say all projects must be or should be followed through on, and not all projects will be a continuous bowl of cherries to bring to completion, but it might not be as hopeless or unappealing as it seemed upon returning to it.

-Mindspace and workspace matter.  Find things that help you get into the rhythm of your work. Listening to podcasts, audiobooks and music helps keep me focused when I’m in the midst of the long-haul on comic pages - doing all of the value and toning work that takes hours.  Being in the right place with a comfortable seat, in a comfortable (but not so comfortable you fall asleep) position, with minimal distractions, tools within reach and good lighting is important too.

-Collect inspirations.  Keep things on hand that you can look at for ideas or simply for that motivation to keep on trucking. Personally, I have a lot of art books around, a lot of historical material like 20th century fashion books, books about old cars, books about flappers, comics with great art, funny collections of syndicated strips, character sketches hanging on my walls, and many gigabytes of inspirational and reference images collected off the internet. Sometimes just browsing through one of those folders sparks ideas and makes me want to pick up my stylus.

-Sleep right and eat right.  I have had a deep seated, lifelong terrible relationship with sleep. I’m still working on that part. If you’ve got a pretty consistent sleep schedule, though, you’re probably off to a good start.As for food - it seems perfunctory to say that it matters what you eat. On some level, we all know that, but, yeah, it really truly absolutely does matter..a lot.  When I was 20, I could live on ramen noodles, goldfish crackers, microwave ravioli and energy drinks. I could pull all-nighters on top of that and still keep chugging merrily along.  Boy, the years run like rabbits, though, and eating like a deranged dumpster goat catches up to you sooner than you might think.  I eventually found myself struggling with perpetual malaise, brain fog and a sour mood that made it hard to do anything or to enjoy doing anything. I’m ashamed to admit to how long it took me to realize - after blaming it alternatingly on allergies, anemia, depression - that my apathetic diet was not conducive to basic life functions, let alone fueling creative fires. I started putting some effort into food selections and it has made the difference between fumbling through life in a semi-conscious state and feeling bright and motivated and - in spite of myself - even happy.(And, contrary to the way society romanticizes connections between depression and artistic impulse, most people work better when they feel better.)

-Practice self-discipline.  Here’s the thing no one likes to hear.  Sometimes, no matter how many devices you have in place to make work fun and comfy and something you look forward to, you just won’t feel like it. You will have to be an adult about it. You will have to simply muster the willpower. You can be that “creative” person who has lots of ideas but never anything to show for them because a million vectors for instant gratification circle around you constantly like distracting little red-devil imps. Or you can be a self-starter building toward something, playing the long game with goals in mind; you can dig your heels in, grit your teeth, take a swig of coffee and get down to work, dammit.

[a-titty-ninja]

[crow821]

lololololol what

[gogearfree]

It gets more awkward.

For the few of you wondering what it is. It's Overlord season 2, episode 2.

Steaming on Crunchyroll(subs) and FUNimation(dubs a few weeks later usually) in North America.

[totalrandocomics]

HEY #DOCTORWHO FANS! What do you think of my Canadian #dalek ?

MORE COMICS at TotalRando.com #totalrando #johnnylarocque #comic #webcomic #comics #webcomics #art #sketch #drawing #humor #funny #lol

[andallshallbewell]

[gogearfree]

So true. Never hurts to bid a co-worker good luck when they find a better gig.

[carudamon119]

庵野秀明、エヴァからゴジラへ創造の裏側～『シン・ゴジラ』を作った男たち - こだわりのビジュアル

[gogearfree]

Man, Godzilla looks as though he’s been through hell.

Also gotta say he might be mostly angry about the tiny arms.

[swegener]

On the bright side: KickStarter books are FINALLY in. On the other hand; 8,573 book-plate stickers to sign.

[gogearfree]

Good Luck Scott. Con season was only a small warm-up.

Plus side is aside from a future mega-bundle this`ll hopefully be the last time you need to do that many in a single obligation.

[theveryworstthing]

okay. it’s late night bunny posting time.

i actually started drawing bunnies and then i came up with an idea for a very cute horror game.

basically, you play as a adorable adventuring bunny person who’s job it is to go out and find a new place for your colony to live. little do you know there’s been a mysterious plague that’s wiping out warrens left and right in the area you’re supposed to investigate. rabbits become ill, start digging in unison as deep as they can, and die in great heaps. the bodies always disappear after a few hours and anyone who tries to stop them just gets pulled into the digging. it sucks. shortly after the plague starts, huge burrowing creatures are spotted tunneling through the ground and killing or infecting everything in their path. when one of the creatures is caught and dragged to the surface, it’s revealed to be mass of distorted rabbit corpses fused together into a worm-like beast with a screaming hivemind. with 5 warrens of rabbits confirmed dead or missing and deaths everywhere, a quarantine is put in place and you are stuck on the wrong side of the fence. you’re soon drafted as a scout to search the tunnels because of your speed and excellent sense of direction. now you have to navigate the dark underground, passing through destroyed homes, collapsing tunnels, and the evidence of mystifying deaths to find survivors and figure out what is going on. all while avoiding the hundred-voiced crawling dead that want to pull you down into the earth with them.

it would be like some kind of adorable underground Bloodborne.

here are some of the bunnies i think would be characters in it. descriptions after the cut.

Keep reading

[theveryworstthing]

i usually never re-blog my work but i posted this at butt-o-clock at night and i still like this idea in the harsh light of day.

[gogearfree]

Well I’ll certainly add to keep it in the light.

If only because this is as creepy as hell.

[gogearfree]

So I uploaded some footage of Dark Cloud 2. Mainly for a few of my co-workers on the fence about it(and still sitting). Footage is about eight minutes of playing through the available cast as of my place in Chapter 2. I’m currently in the back half of the third dungeon so there are a few changes. Mostly progression in leveling/upgrading weapons and the ridepod(Steve!). 

Gonna link a few more videos for posterity later. More than likely the golf/spheda intro and a little tease of fishing. There is a ton of stuff and while there are a few bugs in the PS4 port, it’s still as charming as the day it was released.

[theveryworstthing]

a few small haunted houses.

[e-jheman]

Basic guide of how to react to the arrival of Patricia.

I am surprised how many people do not know anything about it or heard five minutes ago, you might not live there, but many people do, not only in the marked and state of emergency areas, all nearby should be prepared for anything. We have had many natural disasters here in México before, we do not know how bad it can be .

 Share, this information may not serve to you, but many live in the affected area or have family evacuated in areas of risk ….  SHARE,SO ANY MEXICAN TUMBLR USER OR WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY DOWN THERE CAN KNOW WHAT TO DO.

Or they live here,just like me.

Over 50.000 people were already evacuated. 

 This just started, let’s hope it stops soon. Contact all you family and friends,ask them to be prepared.

This basic guide its on spanish, and includes all the emergency numbers from diferent areas around the soon-to-be-affected zone and instruccions of what to do during a huricane. Gonna try to translate it so it can be shared with tourists stuck here… wait for updates….

Guía básica sobre cómo reaccionar a la llegada de Patricia

Me sorprende mucho cuanta gente no sabe nada al respecto o se enteraron hace 5 minutos,puede que no vivas ahí, Pero mucha gente sí, no solo en las areas marcadas y estado de emergencia, todas las cercanías deberían estar preparadas para cualquier cosa. Ya hemos tenido muchos desastres naturales aquí en nuestro país,no sabemos que tan grave se pueda poner.  Compartan,puede que a ti no te sirva,pero muchos vivimos en la zona afectada o tenemos familiares evacuados en las zonas de más riesgo… Esto acaba de empezar,esperemos que se detenga pronto. 

Huracán Patricia en México: cómo prepararse ante un potente huracán y qué hacer cuando toque tierra - BBC Mundo. Ante el huracán Patricia, el gobierno mexicano declaró el estado de “emergencia extraordinaria” en 10 localidades de Colima, 12 de Nayarit y 34 de Jalisco.

¿Pero qué protocolos implica eso? ¿Qué medidas hay que tomar?

En el estado de Guadalajara son @PCJalisco, @GobiernoJalisco, @PCSegob En Colima, es @PC_ColimaVarias cuentas de Twitter también ofrecen esa información:Los siguientes puntos son un resumen tanto de la Coordinación Nacional de Protección Civil de México, como la Administración Nacional Océanica y Atmosférica (NOAA, por sus siglas en inglés) de Estados Unidos, la Cruz Roja Internacional, la Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias de Costa Rica, el Sistema Nacional de Protección Civil de El Salvador y entidades similares.

Elabora un plan que refleje todas las posibilidadesAnota los números de emergencia y tenlos a mano

En Colima el teléfono de emergencia es: (312)313 03 11

En Nayarit: 01-133-30-81

En Jalisco: 01 315 355 6375 y 013 22 225 0764, así como 33 36 75 30 60, o33 36 75 30 60  para la zona metropolitana de Guadalajara, la capital del estado.

Almacena suministros para emergencias en casa y en el auto

Esto incluye comida que no necesite refrigeración, agua y un botiquín de primeros auxilios.Si estás en carretera, extrema las precauciones al conducir, dicen los manuales. Ten a mano dinero en efectivo y las tarjetas de crédito Limpia azoteas, canales y coladeras Averigua dónde está el refugio más cercano y cuáles son las distinas rutas para llegar a él en caso de que tengas que evacuar tu casa

¿Cómo hay que actuar cuando el huracán toque tierra?

Permanece dentro de casa

Cierra puertas y ventanas, suministros de gas y electricidad

Desenchufa los aparatos eléctricos

Aléjate de ventanas

para evitar lesiones si éstas se rompen

Si el viento abre una puerta o ventana, no avances hacia ella de manera frontal

Para alumbrar no uses velas, sino linternas o lámparas que funcionen con baterías

Si vives cerca de un río, vigila el nivel del agua

La primera recomendación es conservar la calma.Y también dan las siguientes pautasSi estás en carretera, extrema las precauciones al conducir

No cruces vados y ríos de respuesta rápida, y evita zonas en las que pudiera ocurrir deslaves y desprendimiento de rocas

Aléjatede las vallas publicitarias, postes eléctricos y árboles ante su posible caída.

¿Y cuando haya pasado?

Es importante mantenerse

informado y seguir las instrucciones transmitidas

por las autoridades a través de los medios de comunicación.

Si hay heridos,repórtaloen el teléfono de emergencia

Si tienes que evacuar la casa, llévate solo lo imprescindible

No busques refugio en un edificio con techo de lámina, ya que se la podría llevar el viento

Usa el teléfono sólo para reportar emergencias

Consume el agua potable que almacenaste y si no lo hiciste, hierve la del grifo. Revisa cuidadosamente la casa y verifica que no haya peligro.Si la casa no sufrió daños, permanece en ella. Asegúrate que los aparatos eléctricos están secos antes de usarlos. Elimina el agua estancada para evitar plagas de mosquitos.

[e-jheman]

A little edited,I will be editing and posting more stuff. If you have questions or need an specific emergency number from here and don’t know how to get it;   just message me! Reblog this one.

[gogearfree]

Toronto After Dark - Day 5 Notes

First up for last night's shows at Toronto After Dark was the thriller short Sleep Monsters. It starts off with the antagonist describing her troubles with a layered nightmare. Starting from a fantastic city on fire before moving to more domestic terror. It has a nice hook as it sets up the end.

The Diabolical is a surprising blend of ghost house and science fiction. It starts off by skipping the hauntings starting. Showing off a fractured family reeling from the almost daily incidents. You see their struggles catching up, from bills to bully issues. Then after a bit of reluctance you start to see a bit of science. That's where the movie shines. Try to avoid spoilers.

Let Me Down Easy. Starts off with a mother saying prayers for her daughter. As the young woman meets up with the other youth we get a too brief look at the puritanical society they come from. They are going through a rite of passage into adulthood and we get some interesting suggestions about why they live this way. Doesn't answer much, but works.

The Interior. Very witty set-up as we are introduced to James, a discontent marketing drone. He screws around while working a weekend and gets canned for it. All leading up to him making this trip out to the woods. To disconnect from what he has grown weary of. There are some really nice night shots as he slowly wanders through the forest. Has its funny moments through his deep cynicism, becoming darker as he gets deeper into the interior.

[gogearfree]

Toronto After Dark - Day 4 Thoughts

Just some slightly edited notes. Bit harsh on the latter two movies, they just didn’t flow with me that well.

From Out follows the detainment and interview of an alien and his first contact. He plays it dry and shallow on the details when it comes to his origin, but shows no intent outside of for knowledge. Light on details, heavy on character.

Shut In. A surprise in the home invasion genre, it's about a woman dealing with the aftermath of her brothers death. While she was supposed to be at the funeral this trio of burglars breaks in. After a short run around the house things start ramping up with some interesting developments. Slightly funny at points, the back story gets a bit heavy near the end as the victim gets closure.

Heir. It was about a father taking a trip with his son to meet an old roommate with some twisted connections. Very dark undertones in suggestion of them drugging a kid, then proceeding to tie up and touch with slime covered tentacles.

The Hallow One. A really convoluted story about a device, the secret behind it and an otherworldly creature. Got a bit too muddled way to quickly with a sore twist at the end. Really neat looking monster, but doesn’t clarify the rules enough to take advantage of its origin.

The Orchard. A very short noir film about a former cop being called up by his partner to finish up an old case.

The Demolisher. Starts with a cop broken, continues with her fiance taking to the streets in revenge. It focuses mostly on the guy doing some heavy vigilantism on this one gang. The latter half has him chasing down this one person who he believes to have stolen an important memento. Gets really dumb, but the soundtrack is fairly good.

[gogearfree]

Toronto After Dark - Day 3 Notes

The International Shorts program was nice this year. With a fair selection of bizarre and beautifully screwed up shorts. Vicious was terrifying but had some sharp scares that didn't sit well with me. If the two brilliant puppet based films, Myrna the Monster held a very curious look at the titular aliens adaption to her new home world. The other, Manoman takes self improvement to a new bizarre extreme. Ending on a down point as the lead fails to take to the extreme standards of his attempted lifestyle. Gonna have to go on more about the rest of them in the next week or two. Lot’s of really entertaining stuff.

Otherwise, onto the main features:

El Gigante is a twisted dark takes on the challenges of crossing the US/Mexico border. About this father put into a cannibal organized fighting ring for his life. Sadly it fell flat too quickly for me.

Night of the Living Deb brings forth it's own take on the zombie genre. Full of personality, cheesy jokes and charisma as two young 20 somethings attempt to survive a small apocalypse. There are a few twists but everything ends up jelling in just the right way. Even Ray Wise manages to be cast right as it’s very easy to misuse his particular style.

IBOP - International Brotherhood of Pancakes It answers the age old question of pancakes vs waffles.

A Christmas Horror Story. It's a compilation, but just happens to be assembled in such a nice way that it works right. The small portions of the story just give you the right amount of tease while they go off and give you another piece of one of the other stories. All with a little Shatner on top of the insanity slowly building up his own story. When you finally get to it it's really satisfying.